


Opening Strange Doors

by ilcuoreardendo



Series: Strange Doors [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Blood Drinking, F/M, Family Secrets, Garry the Prophet's....Prophecies, Gen, Hypnotism, Intimacy, Jig-Jig Street, Johnny's Commentary, Takemura has a wicked side, Touching, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampire!Takemura, Vampires, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29941752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilcuoreardendo/pseuds/ilcuoreardendo
Summary: Cutting through an alley on Jig Jig Street, V sees something she never would have expected, even in Night City"Huh," Johnny said. "Looks like Garry’s ramblings might be something more than SynthCoke delusions, after all."
Relationships: Goro Takemura & V, Goro Takemura/Female V, Goro Takemura/V
Series: Strange Doors [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202033
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Opening Strange Doors

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I stand outside Misty's Esoterica and listen to Garry's ramblings. Minus the techno-necromancer thing. More to come. Ideas are flowing...
> 
> First posted at my [Tumblr](http://ilcuoreardendo-fic.tumblr.com). Join me there for first shots, snippets, rambles (and a whole host of other fandoms.)

* * *

_She opened strange doors that we'd never close again_  
\- David Bowie, "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)"

* * *

“Are you dead?”

Takemura turns from giving the burrito vending machine a critical eye to look at her. “ _What_?”

Even in his new Corpo-On-the-Run threads, he looks out of place in her apartment. The line of his back too straight, the collar of his shirt far too white and the way he holds himself is stiff, on alert.

 _Maybe he just ain’t used to being invited into someone’s home_ , Johnny says, glitching into view near her bed. _Ain’t that a thing with blood suckers?_ Apparently Johnny’s been rifling through her memories of old vampire movies she used to watch on channel 54, in the early hours of morning when sleep was distant.

“Sorry,” V sits forward on her sofa, snags another dumpling from the carton on the table, this one full of vegetable paste. “Not like I know the proper terminology for the real world thing. Undead?”

Takemura pinches the bridge of his nose. V can read that body language. He’s done it quite a few times since they met. She knows he’s wondering how they came to this.

To be fair, she is too. And it’s her world that’s been turned even more ass over end, she thinks, so he could be a _little_ more accommodating.

They finished their business with Wakako. Takemura opted to hang back on Jig-Jig Street, run through his remaining associates, see if he could gather more information. V wasn’t sure what further intel they needed that they couldn’t get themselves. Hell, she wasn’t even sure Takemura had associates he could still call on. Especially after Oda basically told them to get fucked.

But she left him to it with a wave and headed for her bike; she was halfway there when her stomach let out a growl that would rival the Nazaré’s engine and—remembering she had nothing but burritos and tap water at home—she doubled back into the flow of Jig-Jig Street. It wasn’t a place famous for its cuisine, but there was a food stand she and Jackie had stumbled across late one night, after a gig, that served hot jiaozi and cold, cheap beer. She was pretty sure Jackie’d eaten his weight in dumplings that night; the vendor had seemed impressed.

It took her a moment to find the stand, tucked into a corner between one of the seedier sex shops and a building that looked like it hadn’t been in operation since Johnny was alive. Dinner in hand, she backtracked then took a short cut, slipping into one of the narrow alleys that branched off the main street. Halfway through, she stumbled to a halt at the sight of a couple, 20 to 30 yards in front of her; they faced each other, their profiles backlit by washes of neon, flickering from silver to violet to red.

V slipped into the shadows without thought, already backing away, not up to the drama of interrupting a joytoy and her client. Then the man tilted his head. Silver light highlighted the planes of a familiar face, made his eyes glow.

At first, V thought her optics had failed her and ran a quick diagnostic. _Functionality: 100%._

That _was_ Takemura in front of her, one hand cupping the joytoy’s jaw, his head tilted to look into her eyes. He said something in Japanese, too low for her translator to pick it up, but the skin along her spine picked up the sultry rasp of his voice.

The woman replied in the same language, voice breathy, words almost slurring.

V was no stranger to accidental voyeurism. People in Night City made do, whether it was jobs or food. Or places to fuck. You came across ‘em, and just politely averted your eyes and went around. Or not so politely. Or, hell, some people stayed for the show. V’d never been one of those. She always much more of a doer than a watcher. Never really saw the point.

But the idea of watching someone as self-contained as Takemura getting his dick sucked in an alley did something a little funny to her insides. The guy was hot. And okay, there, she’d finally admitted it, out loud, to herself. Well, and Johnny. And maybe she’d feel a little weird about this tomorrow, but tonight….

Barely breathing, she pressed herself close to the wall.

Takemura stroked the joytoy’s face once, then reached for her arm, raising it toward his mouth and V—barely aware she’d engaged her optics—zoomed in as his lips drew back; violet light caught on his too-sharp white teeth as he lowered his head and _bit_ into her wrist.

Accidental voyeurism notwithstanding, V’d seen a lot of other weird shit growing up in Night City. She’d seen even _more_ weird shit lately. But standing in a stinking Jig-Jig Street alley, expecting a voyeuristic little thrill and, instead, watching Takemura Goro as he pulled his mouth away from a nameless woman’s wrist, his lips shiny with blood, sure as fuck knocked the dead rockerboy devouring her brain out of the number one spot.

 _Huh,_ Johnny said, flickering into shape next to her, one hand tilting the rim of his aviators so he could peer over them. _Looks like Garry’s ramblings might be something more than SynthCoke delusions, after all._

“ _V_.” Takemura’s voice broke the hush of the alley, made her flinch.

She shook her head— _get your shit together, woman—_ and pushed off the wall, taking a few steps toward him. The joytoy was gone. And Takemura sounded remarkably calm for all that his spine looked like it might snap in half with how stiffly he held himself. She wondered when he realized she was there.

“I am sure,” he said, over his shoulder, “that you have...questions.”

“A few,” V said. “Starting with “ _what the fuck was that?_ ”

He turned to face her then; his lips were clean; she watched him tuck a square of cloth into his coat pocket. “I would prefer to not discuss this in public. May we go somewhere?”

V looked behind him, at the passing crowd, hesitating.

“V,” his eyes softened, the way they had in Tom’s Diner. “I will not harm you. You have my word.”

And in spite of all Johnny’s bitching and moaning, she trusts Takemura’s word.

Which brings them to now.

She reclines on her sofa, eating cold dumplings. Takemura stands in the middle of her apartment, arms crossed, looking at her like she’s already lost what’s left of her mind.

“This,” he says, “is not a fiction.”

“You’re right. Fiction has to make some goddamned sense.”

“It is simpler than you think. Perhaps. I am not dead. Or undead.” His eyes narrow, as if he can’t believe he’s having this conversation. “This condition—“

“Vampirism?” V helpfully supplies.

Takemura ignores her. “It is...not dissimilar to a virus. Carried in the blood of the Family.”

“The Arasakas,” V says. “So you were...what? Changed? Turned by one of them? That how it works?”

Takemura gives a shallow bob of his head. “After many years of service, Arasaka-sama saw fit to reward my loyalty.”

 _Of course,_ Johnny says from the shadows of her mind. _The loyal guard dog._

V ignores him, mind spiraling. “You immortal?”

Takemura stares at her as if she’s said something very stupid. “Would I be _here_ if we were so?”

For a moment she’s thrown back behind a thin shield of smart glass, watching Yorinobu, his hands around his father’s neck; something creaked and popped inside the old man; she could hear it, even through the glass. She remembers Yorinobu’s knuckles were white with effort—and surely it couldn’t have taken that much strength to strangle an old man. When she’d checked for Saboru’s pulse—as Jackie hissed at her to move her ass—she saw no fingerprints, no bruising. She hadn’t had the time to wonder why that was strange. Maybe this explained it.

“No...” she murmurs, leaning back on the sofa. “Suppose not. Then...why? Why bother with it?”

Takemura walks to the window and stands, hands clasped behind his back, looking out into the neon night; the lights shine in his silver optics. “We are not immortal,” he says finally, “but we are long lived. Even longer so with the continued advances of technology. And so much harder to kill. It happens, but not often at the hands of one not like us.”

“Wait...so you _knew_ Yorinobu had to be lying from the beginning?”

He lifts one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “It was unlikely, though possible, that Yorinobu spoke the truth of his father’s death. There are others like the Arasakas. Powerful, wealthy, with similar resources. And there are those not like us but who know of...weak points. There is reason Arasaka-sama chose to keep me permanently by his side.”

“Fuck me...” V whispers. “Well, that’s not too surprising. A bit poetic, even. Corps suck the world dry. Fitting that the ones running them do the same.”

They sit in silence for a few moments; the awkwardness that had accompanied them to her apartment faded to its usual unlikely-allies level. So, her new choom’s a vampire. V can roll with that. Hell, she can roll with just about anything. She is curious, though.

V finishes off the dumplings—Takemura had declined an offer of them with a subtle wrinkle of his nose—and pitches the carton over the sofa, into the trash bin, before she speaks again. “So...show me.”

Takemura looks confused. “Show you?”

“Yeah. You must have some vampire tricks up your sleeve, right? Show me something.”

“ _V_...still you mock me.”

She’s getting used to the way he says her name when she exasperates him, even coming to like it. Which, of course, only makes her want to exasperate him more. “Not mocking,” she says, holding up a hand. “This is new to me. ‘sides, aren’t you the one who said we should be honest with each other? _Come on_.”

There’s a whisper of sound and Takemura is standing in front of her before she can blink.

With an undignified yelp, she springs from the cushion of the sofa to the top of its frame in response, back pressed against the wall. “ _Holy shit_. Like that, yeah. Fuck, I can see why they’d burn the chrome out of you as soon as you defected.”

“Satisfied?” There’s something subtly wicked in his tone and V knows she’s been introduced to several new sides of the man tonight.

Sliding back onto the cushion, V licks her lips. “That woman in the alley. What did you do?”

Takemura tilts his head in a question.

“I know some strange shit goes down in Night City, but I have a hard time believing she just offered up her wrist when you asked politely,” V says. The traitorous part of her whispers: _and just what would you have done if he’d invited you to slip into that alley with him?_

Takemura reaches for her then. The first time since that moment in Tom’s diner— _V, I need you_ —that he’s voluntarily touched her. His fingers beneath her chin are surprisingly warm; he tilts her head so she’s looking at him.

His eyes shine _gold,_ pure, molten. Something in the back of her brain—the animal part, that knows just how and where to step to avoid becoming prey to a roomful of gangoons, that gets her and her bike beneath the overpass before the storm hits, that has her, still, pushing against all odds to find a way to survive the damned Relic—tells her that’s not the work of color-shifting cyberoptics (and she doubts Arasaka left even the cosmetic functioning of his implants).

This is all _him_.

“Control,” he says, voice soft, accent thick, “is most prized among us. We work, for years, to be able to maintain a public face of decorous humanity, to only let it slip when there is need.”

“And when there’s need?” She barely recognizes her own voice, slow and breathy. She remembers the joytoy’s slurred speech. Remembers Takemura bending over her wrist, teeth and lips pressed to her skin. She wonders what that would feel like.

“We can suggest. Influence. Even hypnotize. To take...” Takemura’s hand moves from her chin to her neck; he slides his thumb along her pulse point, pressing gently. “What we need.”

His hand is suddenly gone.

V opens her eyes, not remembering closing them.

Takemura stands across the room, looking out the window, hands clasped behind his back, as if he’s never moved. But she can see the golden glow in his eyes from here and something in the back of her mind whispers for her to _go_ to him, to _give_ him whatever it is he needs. The feeling grows, like an itch she can’t scratch until—

 _I’ll fuckin’ scratch it for you,_ Johnny says, glitching into view on the sofa next to her, glaring at Takemura. _Ain’t room in your head for this shit, V. Watch what you’re doing._

V shakes her head, rolls her shoulders to get rid of the trail of heat that’s zipping up her spine.

She stares at Takemura. His eyes are back to their silver hue and that compulsive _need_ to go to him is fading. Slowly.

“ _Shit_ ,” V says. “So, in another life, I wouldn’t have had any chance if you did want to drag me back to Yorinobu…”

“No.”

“Bet that party trick comes in handy. Glad you’re on my side. But, Goro?”

“Yes, V?”

“I don’t want bloody bread crumbs leading Arasaka to our door.”

“I do not understand.”

V crosses her legs underneath her, rests her hands on her knees. “How much blood do you need?”

Takemura shifts. “Less than what one would miss with a routine blood donation. And I can get by with that once a week.”

“Get by,” V says. “But for _optimal_ functioning?”

“More often is better,” he admits.

“And am I gonna have to worry about you going off on a hangry rampage and eating your way through the neighborhood joytoys because “getting by” wasn’t cutting it?”

Takemura grows still, eyes narrowing and for a moment V clocks the steps between the two of them and the front door.

“Do not treat me like an amateur. I was honing my self control long before you were born. If I were to—as you say—“eat my way through the neighborhood joytoys,” it would be very much intentional and no one—including Arasaka—would be the wiser.”

Something in his tone makes the skin on V’s back pebble and she nods, slowly. “Well, all right, then. So long as it’s intentional.”

The room grows quiet. V can hear the sound of her neighbors—murmurs of conversation, shouts, screams, the wet tempo of fucking—the hum of the traffic below them.

“Goro?”

He sighs. “Yes, V?”

“Can you turn into a bat?”


End file.
